All For You
by autumn midnights
Summary: Voldemort wins!AU. Daphne Greengrass is an unexpected rebel hiding out with two Ravenclaw classmates. But when she gets word that her sister has been captured by the Death Eaters, she's willing to risk everything to rescue her - and from there, things spiral in a very unexpected direction.


_Disclaimer: I only wish I owned Harry Potter._

_Author's Note: Written for conquerors, courtesy of the Gift-Giving Extravaganza 2013. Hope you enjoy it!_

_Just for clarification on this AU: Harry was killed by Voldemort at the Battle of Hogwarts. The story takes place roughly a year after that._

* * *

I wake, once again, to the sound of Morag and Michael arguing.

That, in itself, is unsurprising. Morag and Michael are best friends - from what they've told me, they were very close during our Hogwarts years, as well - but they are the sort of best friends with a love-hate relationship, who argue with one another over every small decision and then fall asleep on one another at night. I always feel like a third wheel, but I'd rather be with them than alone; there is safety in numbers, after all, and I need safety - or, at least, relative safety. It isn't safe to oppose the reign of the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. I guess I'm braver than I ever thought I was.

I lay there for a moment, unmoving, and I eavesdrop on the two of them. "You don't understand!" Morag half-shouts. "Just because you never had a sister - you don't _get _it, do you? I would give anything for my sister to still be alive."

Michael's voice is calmer. He's not necessarily a quiet person, but he always relies on charm and logic to win arguments, instead of raising his voice. I've seen firsthand how persuasive Michael can be, how he's just as intelligent as the other Ravenclaws I've known, even if he's not as obsessed with book learning as they are. "I know," he says. "And it sucks what happened to her - to your sister and Daph's. But -"

_Astoria? _

I haven't seen my sister in months - no, over a year. From what little I know, she too decided to leave Hogwarts and oppose the Dark Lord's regime as stealthily as she could. We haven't been able to contact each other; owl post is regulated, and I never stay in one place long enough to have a permanent address anyway. I know she's not dead, because the _Daily Prophet _almost always declares the deaths of rebels. There's a front page news story every time the Death Eaters kill one of us; they want to send a message, make a statement.

Rolling off the mattress, I hurry into the kitchen, where Morag and Michael are standing. Morag has an enormous cup of coffee in her hand, and Michael's chowing down on some toast. They both fall silent as I enter, and exchange a guilty look. "What do you mean, 'it sucks what happened to your sister and Daph's'?" I demand, glaring at Michael. "Is there something you know about Astoria that I don't?"

"We were gonna tell you," Morag says, looking at Michael again.

I feel a hot flare of anger. "Tell me what, exactly?"

Michael looks down at the ground. "Astoria's been captured by the Death Eaters. They're holding her at Malfoy Manor."

That part isn't too surprising. Although the Death Eaters have infiltrated the Ministry - or rather, openly taken control of it - Malfoy Manor is still used as a sort of headquarters, a place where they can conduct business in private, without having to worry about the Ministry workers. Nobody who works at the Ministry openly opposes the Death Eaters - those of us who oppose them live on the fringe, sometimes even in Muggle locations - but there are many people still there who are neutral, who just don't say anything either way. Malfoy Manor is where the Death Eaters carry out the activities that they don't want neutral people to see.

Then the words catch up with me, and I let out a strangled noise. Astoria - my younger sister - captured by the Death Eaters? She's young, only seventeen, and now she's a prisoner. It seems so wrong to me that the Death Eaters would sink so low as to capture a seventeen-year-old girl and hold her as a captive. I can feel tear tracks coursing down my cheeks as I wonder how long Astoria has to live. The Death Eaters don't keep prisoners that long. Oh, sure, they'll capture people if they can and hold them, use them for curse practice for a little while, but soon enough every prisoner gets killed.

"Are you sure?" I ask, wiping my face.

Morag nods, a grim look on her face. "Padma told me."

I curse. Padma Patil, Morag's ex-roommate from Hogwarts, occasionally slips information to us. She works in the Ministry at a low-level position in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, dealing with crimes that have nothing to do with rebelling against the government - burglaries, drunken brawls, etc. Her position enables her to easily find out information about more serious crimes, those involving us rebels, or news of when one of us gets captured or killed; Padma is, apparently, a very talented eavesdropper. And she's always been extremely reliable.

"I'm sorry," Michael says. "I know you -"

"What are you apologizing for?" I say, interrupting him. "I'm going to get her out of there."

Michael inhales sharply. "Do you know how warded and protected Malfoy Manor is? It would take months before we could find a way in there, and even if we could find out how to get in, there's still only three of us. The chances of us actually managing to get Astoria out of there are slim to none. It's a suicide mission, Daphne."

"You don't have to help, then." I cross my arms. I know I sound petulant and stubborn, but this isn't negotiable. This is Astoria - this is my sister. I have to save her. I'm the older sister - I have to take care of her, no matter how dangerous. It's been ingrained into me since I was young - since before our Hogwarts years. _Make sure Astoria behaves herself. Make sure Astoria doesn't say anything that will get her in trouble. Make sure Astoria is taken care of in Slytherin. Make sure that Astoria's safe. __  
_

I can't back out of my duty now, just because the stakes are higher. I love Astoria, even though we haven't communicated in over a year; we will always be family. Slytherin may not be about jumping recklessly into situations for the hell of it, fighting just to fight, like a Gryffindor, but we will always protect the people that we love. We will stand up for what we believe in. Always.

* * *

"You're sure she's still alive?" Michael whispers to Morag for what must be the thousandth time this week. It's been nearly a month since we received the news that Astoria was being held at Malfoy Manor, and that whole time has been spent plotting a way to get into the house. Michael's been reluctant as hell, complaining the whole time, but Morag agreed to help me, and he refuses to leave her.

I know Morag doesn't care about Astoria specifically - as far as I know, they barely knew each other. But Morag's own sister - a Squib, four years younger - was killed shortly after the Dark Lord and his forces won the Battle of Hogwarts, and I know that Morag understands wanting to save a family member. She gets it, far more than Michael - an only child - does.

She huffs at Michael. "Positive. I checked with Padma today. Now shut up." Her voice is quiet. The three of us are concealed in a large tree right outside the boundary of Malfoy Manor's grounds. The boundary is marked off by a low stone wall, maybe three feet high. In itself, that isn't much of an obstacle at all, but we all know that the problem doesn't lie with the physical aspects of the property; the problem is almost entirely with the protection and wards surrounding the property. They're so strong that I can sense them, and I know Morag and Michael - tense as they seem - can as well.

"Can you take them down?" I whisper to Michael. "Long enough for us to get inside?"

He's been practicing even more than usual the past month with breaking wards that Morag and I create, but I know there's a marked difference between practicing and the real thing. He looks at me for a second, and I can see that familiar expression that I've been seeing for the past month. It's his '_This-is-stupid' _expression, but now there's a hint of fear in there, too - because now, this is real. We're actually breaking into Malfoy Manor, with not enough preparation time and not enough help and definitely not enough experience. He sighs. "Yes," he says. "I can."

He gets to work. I don't even understand half of what he's doing; dismantling wards and protection spells is extremely complicated, and the slightest error could actually set them off so that people are alerted of our presence. It is possible to take down wards without anybody being aware that the wards are down; it's just extremely difficult.

It feels like it takes Michael six hours, but in reality it's more like an hour before he finally drops his wand hand back to his side, looking exhausted. Morag and I jump down from the tree and vault over the stone wall; Michael catches up to us as we're crossing the grounds. The grounds of Malfoy Manor are dark, and we don't dare to light our wands for fear of being seen. There are people out patrolling the grounds, but there's not enough of them to present that much of a danger to us, and we reach the actual house without that much of a problem.

Michael's lagging behind a bit, and Morag drops back to check on him as I investigate the doors. They're nothing special; it doesn't even seem warded, although I'm no way near as good at sensing wards as Michael is. The two Ravenclaws approach, and I point my wand at the door, deciding to go for simplicity first. "_Alohomora." _I speak quietly - my verbal spells are far stronger than my nonverbal, even for simple charms like this - and the lock audibly clicks open. I pull the door open, and step inside.

The front room is dim, and before I can truly take stock of my surroundings, someone yanks my wand out of my hand and throws it. I squint, scrambling for it, but someone - the same person? - hits me with a Body-Bind, and I fall to the floor. I hear the door slam all the way open, and then Morag and Michael are yelling curses, and the lights blaze on to illuminate the whole room. I'm facing the altercation, thank Merlin, and I see my two allies fighting with four Death Eaters, all of whom are far older and bigger than they are.

"_Avada Kedavra!" _The words of the Killing Curse coming from Morag's mouth shock me, and I can see a similar surprised expression on Michael's face as the jet of green light hits one of the Death Eaters square in the chest. He falls with a loud thump that startles one of the others, and I'm beginning to think maybe we'll get out of this alive - just as Morag's hit with something that sends her flying out the open doorway, back onto the grounds.

"Run!" Michael screams, and I can only hope that Morag hears him, because seconds later one of the Death Eaters hits him with a purple jet of light, and he falls, unmoving, not breathing, to the ground.

I can't do much, but I close my eyes.

* * *

After that someone must have Stunned me or otherwise knocked me out, because I wake up in a dungeon. When I last saw the basement of Malfoy Manor - many years ago, when Draco's mother invited all the Slytherins in his year over for a party during the summer - it was almost entirely bare. Now, the whole thing has been changed - chains are attached to the walls and the pillars that hold up the ceiling at intervals just far enough so that no two people can reach each other. There are several books piled near the stairs; all of them seem to be related to Dark Arts, torture, or both.

I take stock of everything. First and foremost, I'm bound to one of the poles. A chain embedded in the pole stretches a couple feet to where I am; a big cuff encircles my stomach. My arms and legs are free and unbound, but it doesn't help me too much. I feel around the entire thing, but there's no locking mechanism, and no way for me to slip out of it; must be magically locked and unlocked, then.

The pillar isn't extremely sturdy-looking on first glance - its diameter is probably only three or four inches, but no matter how hard I pull on the chain, I can't make any progress on pulling the pole down or yanking the chain out. I am, without a doubt, trapped.

There's a little room to move. The chain gives me a couple feet of leeway - I can comfortably lay, sit, or stand without having to adjust my position, and I can circle the pole entirely, but that doesn't do me much good. All it does is make me slightly more comfortable than the unlucky people whose chains attach to the wall. Pureblood privilege, I guess.

"Astoria?" I call out. I don't see her in the immediate vicinity. There's a couple other prisoners, but I don't know who any of them are. "Astoria, are you there? Are you okay?"

"Over here," she calls back. Her voice sounds rough and hoarse. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Er, rescuing you."

"Yeah, good job." I hear someone sigh, although I can't be sure whether it's Astoria or not. "You shouldn't have come."

"You're my sister," I answer. "I have to look out for you."

"At the price of getting yourself killed? Damn, Daphne, what were you thinking?"

I don't respond to her comment, knowing she has a point. I wasn't thinking - I had acted exactly like the Gryffindors that I used to scorn. I had rushed into the Death Eaters' stronghold with only a month's preparation because someone I cared about was there. I had gotten one of my closest friends killed - and he hadn't even wanted to participate in this foolhardy plan in the first place. Michael was dead, Morag was Merlin-knew-where, I was captured - all because I had insisted on rushing everything to save Astoria.

"Are you all right?" I ask instead, trying to force the painful thoughts of Michael out of my mind. The image of the purple light striking him replays, vividly, in my mind, over and over again. He's dead - he was killed - he didn't even want to be here. It's all too hard to deal with, and I blink back tears.

Astoria's voice shocks me back to the present, at least for a few seconds. "Alive and in one piece, at least."

"They hurt you?" It's a stupid question, but I still feel the need to clarify. It's Astoria - I have to check up on her, I have to make sure she's okay. I have to.

"They're the freaking Death Eaters," Astoria says. "Down here, we're nothing more than curse practice to them. And I've been here for a month - what the hell do you expect?" I know my sister, and I can read her. She's trying to sound brash, trying to keep that give-'em-hell, Gryffindor attitude that made her disapprove of the Death Eaters in the first place, but there's an undercurrent of pain, of terror. She's not some hardened ex-Auror rebel leader; she's not like Morag or Michael, who probably each racked up twenty detentions during our seventh year. She's never been tortured - never been hurt like this, and she's scared as hell.

I am too.

A little bit of time passes, with no activity, and all of the prisoners are, for the most part, silent. There's an occasional sigh or groan of pain as someone tries to adjust their position, but nobody talks. I wonder if people were more vocal when they first came here, if they tried to be friendly to whoever was near them, and then that eventually dwindled away to nothing as they realized how meaningless it was. The only two prisoners I can see clearly are a man and a woman; the man is older, maybe fifties or sixties, and the woman is in her thirties. I can tell they've both been here a while.

Eventually I start to hear a conversation going on above the stairs. The door is partially-open - it must be, for me to be able to hear them - and I can't help but eavesdrop.

"-both of them? You're a low-level initiate - it's ballsy enough for you to ask for one of them! I still have no idea why they agreed to it. She just got here - let us all have some fun with her first."

"She's mine," the second voice says, and I can't hold back a gasp. I recognize that voice - I heard that voice for seven years, especially when we were older and he finally stopped being such a loner. Theodore Nott - my Housemate, my friend. I had no idea he became a Death Eater, although I can't say I'm surprised; he was always very receptive to the Carrows' teachings, and he was wicked with his curses when the Carrows made him help in detention.

"You have no right-"

"I do have a right, actually." Theodore's voice is smooth, and it's gotten a little deeper since the past time I saw him. "Any of us has the right to petition to claim one of them as our own, and do whatever we please with them, unless the Dark Lord has specifically told us not to. He's said nothing about her - so I'm taking her."

"The other one stays," the first voice - rougher and scratchier, definitely an older bloke - says. "You only get one."

"If you insist," he says. "May I go down now?"

The first bloke sighs loudly. "Oh, go on, you spoiled little brat."

I hear the door creak open all the way, and then Theodore comes down the stairs. He looks good, I have to admit - his dark hair is no longer as lank, his body no longer so wiry and pale. He's filled out - grown up - here in the Death Eaters' ranks. It's done him some good, and I know what that says about him, but I can't bring myself to care. It's wonderful to see his face again, even though we're not on the same side anymore. "Theodore," I say, pulling myself to a standing position. I'm slightly taller than him; he's not a large man.

"I hate seeing you like this." He waves his wand, and the end of the chain that's attached to the pillar detaches, zooming into his hand too fast for me to try to do anything. "Come on."

I stand my ground. "What's going on?"

"I'm taking you upstairs," he says. "I petitioned my right to take one of the prisoners, as soon as I heard you were here. You still can't leave Malfoy Manor - hell, you really can't leave my room, unless I'm bringing you somewhere - but I figured it'd be a lot more pleasant if you stayed up in my room instead of down here in the basement."

I narrow my eyes at him and fold my arms. "Oh, no. I am not becoming some sort of depraved sex slave, not even for you. I'll take my chances with staying down here, thank you very much."

He rolls his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous." He lowers his voice, so that he's practically whispering. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to abuse you, I'm not going to coerce you, I'm not going to make you do anything. I'm doing this as a bloody favor to you, because we were close at Hogwarts. Daphne, if you stay down here, you're going to die in a few months - or whenever they decide that you're no longer useful. If you're with me, you can live for a long time. You don't have to die."

If Morag were here, she'd spit in Theodore's face and tell him she'd rather be tortured than spend any second with him. Of course, Morag has a history with Theo - considering all her detentions, she's been on the receiving end of his curses a couple of times. I don't have that history with him. I may not trust him fully, but his offer sounds far better than staying in this hellhole. I nod. "Fine," I say. "And my sister?"

"I'm sorry," he says. "I tried to make them let me have her as well, but they said that I was pushing my limit with you."

"I came here to save her," I hiss.

Theodore lets out a breath. "Damn," he says. "Who are you? The Daphne I knew at Hogwarts would never do anything so stupid."

"Well, back then I didn't need to," I spit.

He stares at me, and I can see disbelief in his eyes. "Are you seriously arguing with me? Keep in mind, I'm doing you a favor. I could leave you down here." He points his wand at me. "I could torture you, and not a single person would give a damn."

"Are you threatening me?" I stare him down, and he lowers his wand to his side. His grip on it is still firm, ready for anything.

"No," he says. "Merely stating the facts." He tugs on the chain. "Come on."

Theodore's room is sparse and bare. There's furniture - a large bed, a comfortable-looking armchair, a round desk with a few smaller chairs around it - but no decorations, nothing to suggest that this place is truly his. He locks the door behind us as we enter, and he wiggles the chain in his hand, a thoughtful look in his eyes. "Are you going to take that off of me?" I ask.

"Are you going to attack me if I do?" He's still holding his wand as if anticipating an attack. I realize, with a start, that he's anticipating an attack from _me. _I shake my head. Even if I did overpower Theo and escape his room, there's still a houseful of Death Eaters I would have to get through. I have absolutely no chance of escaping on my own. Theo's right - there's no point in dying down there in the basement. It won't prove anything to anybody. It won't save Astoria, it won't resurrect Michael, it won't help Morag, wherever she is. At least here, I'll be alive - I'll be comfortable.

I may be a rebel - I may be different than most of the Slytherins, but in a way, I'm still one of them. I still have a sense of survival and self-preservation, and I'm not going to condemn myself for no reason at all. "I won't attack you," I say. "I swear."

* * *

Living with Theodore is interesting.

There's really no other word to describe it. I knew him at Hogwarts, sure, but not this closely - not this intimately. We're sharing a room, and I can see all the little parts about him that I could never notice at school, surrounded by as many people as we were then.

He's very orderly and organized - every night, he cleans his room with magic, getting rid of whatever dust happened to settle or whatever dirt he tracked in. He has a nightly routine; he brings supper up to his room and we both eat, and then he spends time practicing magic. Most of the time, it isn't even curses; he simply practices spells, even simple ones, over and over until he can do them with no effort. Sometimes he'll read a book from the Manor's extensive library. He'll clean the room, and then he'll shut off the lights and climb into bed.

I sleep in the armchair. It isn't the best makeshift bed in the world, but Theodore never offers the use of his bed, and I don't dare to ask. Him keeping me alive and unhurt is enough of a risk; if the Death Eaters ever caught him actually going out of his way to be pleasant towards me, we'd probably both be sent downstairs to the dungeon.

About a week passes before I finally work up the courage to ask him some serious questions. "You know who Morag MacDougal is, right?"

He nods, taking a bite of his supper. He always takes an enormous portion from the kitchen, and then gives half of it to me. "She was in the D.A. during our seventh year of Hogwarts. I remember that she was in detention a lot that year."

"That's her," I say. "Did she - was she captured or killed on the night that I was brought here?"

Theodore shakes his head. "No. Michael Corner was killed, but there was nothing about MacDougal."

I breathe a sigh of relief. That's one weight off of my shoulders. Morag managed to get away, then. If she was able to get to the edge of the property and Apparate off, then she couldn't have been that severely injured; it's nearly impossible to Apparate with a severe injury because of the concentration required. She's still out there somewhere, then. I hope she's not alone - I hope she was able to meet up with other rebels. "And..." I look down. "What about my sister? Is she still alive?"

Theodore rubs the back of his neck. "Yes."

"And...?"

"What do you expect, Daphne? Yes, she's alive. She's not in good condition - but what would you expect, spending five weeks as a prisoner of the Death Eaters?" He folds his arms across his chest, staring me down. "I'm sorry, but she's not going to survive much longer."

"She's seventeen, damn you." I hold the stare. "She's barely of age, and now she's downstairs going through hell because she doesn't agree with your views. Did you ever think that maybe this is why people oppose the Death Eaters? Instead of trying to listen to reason - of trying to convince people and debate them - you kill and torture everyone who dares to speak out against you! You can't rule by fear - it never works. And oh, Merlin, I hope I'm alive to see you all fall."

I storm away from him, intending to lock myself in his lavatory, but he catches at my arm and spins me around. There's fire in his eyes. "Do you think that any of this was my idea? I didn't have a goddamned choice in joining the Death Eaters - in doing any of this. You know how my father brought me up - he killed my mother, for Merlin's sake. If I didn't join up, he would have killed me himself. I learned when I was little that it was far easier to do exactly what my father and his friends told me to - and to do it well - than to resist stupidly."

"There are some things that are worth resisting stupidly," I say. I can't believe the words coming out of my own mouth. "Family - and friends - and beliefs -"

"What do you expect me to do?" Theodore roughly lets go of my arm. "I did save you, Daphne."

"I'm still as much a prisoner as I was before! Just because I'm not being cursed every day doesn't mean that I'm not a captive."

"And _what do you expect me to do about that?_"

"Get us out," I say, and my voice drops to little more than a whisper. "Astoria and me. Just get us out of here. You've been here a year - you know how everything works."

He stares at me. "You have the nerve-"

"I will do anything to save my sister, Theodore."

I expect some sort of cold comment about how she's not even worth saving, but he simply looks down. "That's admirable."

* * *

It takes time. Theodore, painfully, reminds me of Michael a little - he has the same reluctance to partake of my scheme. I can only hope that he won't meet the same fate. After a couple of days, he manages to find me a wand, taking it off some unlucky person the Death Eaters have captured. It isn't ideal, but since its allegiance is to Theodore, and Theodore willingly gave it to me, it doesn't put up too much of a fuss. I practice a little in the room, and we both practice Disillusionment Charms until we can do it within two seconds, and we're nearly invisible.

"Do you truly believe that what the Death Eaters do is wrong?" I ask him a few hours before we plan to escape. I'm on edge, pacing around the room, while Theodore reclines on the bed.

He rolls on his side. "I believe in pureblood superiority," he says. "But there are far more clever ways to handle the issue than this. Brute force - all this change within a couple of years - it's not going to do any good. There has to be subtlety for a regime change to work, and the Death Eaters have none of that."

"Why are you helping me?" I conjure up a hair band and tie my hair up into a bun, so that it won't get in the way when we make our escape. I'm still wearing the same dark, practical clothes that I wore when Michael, Morag, and I tried to break in. It feels unbelievable that it was only a couple of weeks ago. Michael's death keeps replaying in my mind, and I hold to the knowledge that Morag's alive, that she must be well, because surely I would have heard about it. I look at Theodore, still slightly disbelieving that he's my partner now, that he's going to actually help me escape, despite his reluctance.

He looks away from me. I can see the proud set of his jaw, the firmness of his cheekbone. He's a man now, not the quiet teenager I knew during my Hogwarts years. And now - after so many years of him doing what the Death Eaters say - he's standing against them. He's helping two prisoners escape - hell, as far as I know, he's coming with us, because otherwise the Death Eaters would torture and kill him for helping us. He's doing a good thing, an honorable thing. And I want to know why.

"Theodore?" I press, bolder now than ever before, now that I have a wand, now that the escape plan is practically on top of us. I'm nervous, on the edge of anticipation, but at the same time I'm excited, alert, confident. "Why are you helping me now?"

He still refuses to look at me. "You showed me there are things worth..." He takes a deep breath, and then continues. "There are things worth fighting for or risking life and limb for. I guess I found one of those things."

"What do you mean?"

He finally looks at me, and his eyes are full of unreadable emotions - pain and longing and wistfulness. "You," he says. "You're worth fighting for. You're worth risking my life for - killing for, dying for. I tried to save you by bringing you here, but then I saw how you couldn't be happy without knowing that your sister was alive and well. Yes, I'm reluctant, still. This is still an insane plan that only has a chance of working, and I still have that Slytherin sense of self-preservation we were all born with. But I'm sacrificing that - I'll sacrifice _me -_ all for you."

We move toward each other at the same time, and our lips meet. It's a desperate kiss, and I can practically taste the fear and adrenaline on his lips. This isn't a soft, slow, first declaration of love and kindness. This is chaos, and wildness, and the knowledge that we might not make it through the night. I can sense his fear - fear of the Death Eaters, fear of their retribution, fear of dying, fear of whatever comes after dying. And he's willing to experience that fear for me.

"If we make it out," he whispers, "where will we even go?"

I look into his eyes. I don't know if I'm in love with him. Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm just drawn to him because he's drawn to me, and that's why I'm content standing here in his arms. Either way, he's going to be by my side if we get out of here, and I find myself being happy with that. I lean my head on his shoulder. "Anywhere," I answer, and I think that's good enough.


End file.
